Many current carrying components require electroplated surfaces at specific locations in order to provide good electrical contact at mechanically coupled surfaces. Typically, the surface is electroplated with silver. Conventional practice usually results in the electroplating of an entire component because it is less costly than masking for selective electroplating. While the additional expense of selective masking is eliminated with this conventional technique, there is a very considerable expense in the silver utilized to provide the desired electrical contact when the entire component is electroplated with silver. It has been a long standing need within the art of electroplating to provide a technique in which the spot "plating" of copper components with silver by the controlled disposition of silver powder onto the desired area could be accomplished. Ideally, silver powder would be fused into a homogenous layer bounded to the copper component. It has also been a goal within the art to develop a technique whereby laser energy could be used to locally coat electrically conductive components such as copper components with the desired spot "plating" with silver.
The combination of the laser and the robot has added a powerful new tool to industry. Unfortunately, certain lasers present specific limitations in their use for metal processing. This is particularly true because each material absorbs, reflects and transmits a specific laser wavelength differently. Accordingly, the opitmal laser for each material is different. The best laser for an installation must be selected after an in-depth study of the particular scope of work. Thus, by way of an example, a CO.sub.2 laser is not used in material applications in which brass is present while a YAG laser has shown to be fair to good in such applications. This problem results due to the difficulty of obtaining coupling between the laser beam and the reflective substrate.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a process whereby effective coupling between the laser beam and the material powder to be disposed onto a substrate can be consistently obtained.
It is another object of this invention to provide a process whereby both deoxidizing and fluxing action can be effectively promoted during laser material processing.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a process for the selective spot "plating" of a component so that significant cost reductions can be had through minimizing the use of expensive materials.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a method which replaces the current electroplating techniques which require tedious masking with an automated system for the seletive spot plating of a component.
It is another object of this invention to provide a process whereby significantly thicker, adherent metal coatings can be achieved than by conventional electroplating techniques.
It is still another object of this invention to provide a process for enhancing the absorbant surface characteristics of both the cladding material and the substrate with a material that is insoluble with both the cladding material and substrate.